“The next day was spent in feasting on Indian corn and dogs’ flesh.  The people here had an abundance of Indian corn, which they sowed at all seasons.  They cook it in great earthen jars which are very well made, and also have plates of baked earth.  The men go naked and wear their hair short; they pierce their noses, from which, as well as from their ears, hang beads....  Their cabins are made of bark, and are long and wide.  They sleep at the two ends, which are raised two feet above the ground.  They know nothing of the beaver, and their wealth consists in the skins of wild cattle.  They never see snow in their country, and recognize the winter only through the rains.”

The expedition had passed the confluence of the Missouri and that of the Ohio, and had finally reached the place where the Arkansas River enters the Mississippi.  Here the Frenchmen gathered from the natives that the sea was only ten days distant, and this sea they knew (for Jolliet was able to take astronomical observations and to make a rough survey) could only be the Gulf of Mexico.  Jolliet feared if he prosecuted his journey any farther, he and his people would fall into the hands of the Spaniards and be imprisoned, if not killed.  Therefore, at this point on the Lower Mississippi, the expedition turned back.  Its return journey was a weary business, for the current was against the canoes as they were propelled northwards up the Great River.  But Jolliet learnt from the natives of a better homeward route, that of following the Illinois River upstream until the expedition came within a very short distance of Lake Michigan, near where Chicago now stands.  The canoes were carried over a low ridge of ground, launched again in the Chicago River, and so passed into Lake Michigan.  (There is, in fact, at this point the remains of an ancient water connection between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, and a canal now connects the two systems.) Jolliet, in describing this region, realized that by cutting a canal through two miles of prairie it would be possible to go “in a small ship” from Lake Erie or Lake Superior “to Florida”.

Father Marquette remained at his new mission on the Fox River (he died two years afterwards on the shores of the Straits of Michili-makinak).  Jolliet, on returning by way of the Ottawa River to Quebec, was nearly drowned in the La Chine Rapids (Montreal), and all his papers and maps were lost.  The natives with him also perished, but he struggled to shore with difficulty, and went on his way to Quebec to report his wonderful discoveries to the Governor, Frontenac.  Fortunately Father Marquette had also kept a journal and had made maps, and these reaching the superior of his mission arrived in time to confirm Jolliet’s statements.

Jolliet married at Quebec, and proceeded to explore and develop the regions along the north coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, travelling in this work as far as Hudson’s Bay.  He was given by the French Government the Island of Anticosti as a reward for his achievements, but the work and capital which he put into the development of this long-neglected island came to nothing; for it was captured by the English, and Jolliet died a poor man whilst attempting to explore the coast of Labrador.